Transcript

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The Road Ahead?: An Islamic Financial Ethicist's Observations on the Current
Economic Crisis and Possible Recovery Strategies
Beginning with Name of God I greet you with the greeting of “Peace”.
Thank you for the lovely introduction. I last time visited the beautiful Wesleyan
campus when I attended the graduation of my brother in the late 90s. My brother
always speaks fondly of his undergraduate years here. I will try to be on my best
behavior, therefore, so as to not embarrass him at his alma mater!
The title of my brief talk this evening is “The Road Ahead?: An Islamic Financial
Ethicist's Observations on the Current Economic Crisis and Possible Recovery
Strategies.”
In comments that he made during a recent interview on National Public Radio, Niall
Ferguson--the noted Harvard economic historian and author of the recently published
work, The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World--observed that one of
the consequences of the current financial crisis is that our confidence in the economic
models that were (and still are) championed by our economists has been shaken. That
is to say, one of the outcomes of the global financial crisis may be that the economic
and financial models that have been accepted among, and championed by,
economists--particularly in the last few decades with the rise of radical free market
ideology--have been shaken to the core. Presumably, Professor Ferguson is referring
to the financial models that supported the creation and wide spread dissemination of
securitized debt instruments, such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). He was
also presumably referring to the risk models that allowed for the use of derivatives,

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such as credit default swaps (CDS) and similar contracts, as risk management
mechanisms.
Such sentiments have been echoed by noted commentators other than Professor
Ferguson.
The Noble-winning Columbia University economist, Joseph Stigliz, has made
intensely critical statements about the financial system. In a recent CNN commentary,
entitled ‘How to Prevent the Next Wall Street Crisis,” Professor Stiglitz frankly
stated: “.. at the center of blame must be the financial institutions themselves. They--
and even more their executives-- had incentives that were not well aligned with the
needs of our economy and our society.” Elsewhere, he has been intensely critical of
the performance of the management of the US’ largest financial institutions, claiming
that they failed to allocate capital and manage risk, which are ostensibly their primary
responsibilities.
As the media watchers among you will know, anger at financial institutions and their
leadership is wide spread among the American populace. Public discontent with the
perceived mismanagement of the October 2008 “bailout” funds, by CEOs and other
C-suite level leaders of entities such as CitiGroup and AIG, suggest that the American
public itself may be prepared to consider deep changes to the American financial
system. Therefore, it is interesting to consider the following questions: how should we
respond as a society to the current financial crisis? What changes need to be made to
our financial system in order to mitigate the harm resulting from the crisis? What are

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the principles that should govern our reform of the dominant financial system so that
such crises are less likely to occur again?
My comments will not be those of an economist and finance academic, as I am neither
(although I have occasion to work with them in my work as an Islamic financial
ethicist). Rather, I am a student of traditional Islamic ethics and law, known as fiqh,
an Arabic term that literally means “deep understanding” in the Islamic intellectual
tradition. The system of ethics that consists of the ethical values associated with
human actions is known as the sharī`a, Islamic sacred ethics. Islamic ethics, like other
systems of ethics is concerned with right and wrong, what human beings ought and
ought not to do. Like other systems of religious ethics—particularly the traditional
ethics of its fellow Abrahamic religions, Judaism and Christianity—Islamic ethics
rely primarily on scriptural sources. Specifically, Islamic ethicists rely primarily on
two revealed sources: 1) the Qur’an, the book that Muslim recognize as verbo Dei (a
communication from God himself to humankind) and 2) the authoritative example of
the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace), whom Muslim recognize as the last
of prophets, a line beginning with the father of humanity, Adam, and including
individuals known to the Judeo-Christian traditions, such as Abraham, Moses and
Jesus. It should be noted that Islamic ethics relies on various secondary sources as
well. What is worth emphasizing here is that although normative Islamic ethics is
characterized by the deontological tendencies that one would expect (i.e. things are
right or wrong because God has made them so) most traditional Muslim ethicists
recognize what we might call a consequentialist or teleological bias to Islamic ethics
as well (i.e. actions are right of wrong because of the consequences associated with
them). The apparent tension between these two principles is a matter this has been

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worked out by theologians and ethicists over the centuries. In the Islamic intellectual
tradition, one of the ways in which this apparent tension has been addressed is
through the elaboration and application of ethico-legal maxims. In Islamic ethics,
maxims are pithy expressions that capture principles that apply to broad areas, if not
all, of the law. It should be noted that maxims make it easier for us to discuss Islamic
ethics in a comparative ethical context.
I make mention of some of the philosophical bases of Islamic ethics and law above
because in the remainder of this talk, I will discuss proposed strategies for recovery in
light of Islamic financial ethics and law.
I will approach the task of discussing what went wrong and more importantly how we
can fix it in the near- and long term by examining the suggestions of several
economists and finance academic. It is a principle of Islamic ethics in general that
deference is given to expert on the matters of fact associated with their areas of
expertise, as long as their conclusions do not run counter to establish determinations
in Islamic normative ethics. To put it briefly, the Islamic financial ethicist comments
on what type of practices are unacceptable or acceptable ethico-legally; while
economists and finance academics experts would suggest mechanism and solutions
and comment on the expected results associated with each. This is a pattern of
collaboration that prevails in the sharī`a-compliant financial sector.
It should be stressed that I am not maintaining that the leading economists and finance
academics that I will mention favor adoption of the “Islamic” solutions that I will
describe. No doubt many might oppose them. Rather I want to show that solutions

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consistent with Islamic financial ethics are already being suggested by thought leaders
in this space.
As some of you may know there is an Islamic finance sector that exists as a niche
financial sector (also know as shari`a compliant finance or halal—i.e. permissible—
finance) composed of investment banks, retail banks, insurance companies, fund
managers and other entities. The sector is concentrated primarily in the GCC (the
Arabian Gulf) and Malaysia, but also has significant presence in areas outside the
traditional Muslim world, such as the UK.
Professor Samuel Hayes, the eminent Harvard Business School Professor of
Investment Banking emeritus and co-author of Islamic Law and Finance: Religion,
Risk, and Return (1997), along with Prof Frank Vogel, commenting several months
ago on the performance of Islamic banks in the crisis noted that “Given their
constraints, they actually don’t hold any conventional debt or conventional mortgages.
They don’t have any of these derivatives or outright subprime loans. There’s no doubt
that they have weathered this better than the conventional banks.”
Accordingly some of my comments will revolve around the answer to the question:
what has protected sharī`a compliant financial institutions from the same degree at
least of harm that has been experienced by conventional banks and what is it then that
can be adopted in the US from the practice of Islamic finance as part of a sound
response to the US and global financial crisis.
Let see what see how this plays out in the recommendations of some experts.

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The current plan for reform of the US financial sector that has been described by US
Treasury Secretary, Tim Geitner, is thought to consist of 1) a review the banks’ books
with the intention of revealing what toxic (or troubled) assets they actually have and
2) creation of a public-private investment fund (or a similar entity), often called a so-
called “bad bank”, that will gather these troubled or toxic assets (non-performing
loans, CDS, bonds secured with mortgage and credit card debt and the like) and
facilitate the creation of a market for them, thereby allowing the private sector to
purchase them at acceptable prices.
Returning to Professor Ferguson’s calls for structural changes in the US financial
system: He suggested that shareholders of banks should be “wiped out,” that the
creditors should take a “hair cut” and that depositors should be protected—as is
presumably the case, given the FDIC system, for bank deposits—at least for deposits
below the established.
He also calls for what he admits is essentially “nationalization”, for a limited time, of
banks. He suggests that it is imperative that the US financial system avoid the
perceived mistakes of the Japanese financial system during the so-called “lost
decade.” During the 90s according to many economic historians and expert observers,
Japanese banks were not forced, as the observers say that they should have been, to
divulge their non-performing loans and other “sour” assets. In retrospect, critics have
said, the Japanese banks should have been more aggressively closed by regulators.

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Similar comments are made by other experts. Professor Noriel Roubini, professor at
New York University's Stern School of Business, is credited by journalists and his
peers with anticipating much of the credit crisis. In an op-ed in the February 19
edition of the Washington Post, co-written with his fellow NYU Stern School
professor, Matthew Richardson, Roubini calls for a strategy similar to what that of the
Swedish government in their earlier 90s banking crisis. Interestingly, Roubini and
Richardson apparently elaborate on their ideas in an upcoming book to which they are
contributing, entitled Restoring Financial Stability: How to Repair a Failed System.
For some time, Islamic economists have been calling for national and global
economies, and in particular, national financial sectors and the global financial system
to be redesigned (or evolved) so that there are direct and immediate connections
between so-called real, tangible assets (goods—such as land, infrastructure, buildings,
factories, vehicles, etc—and services associated with them), on the one hand, and
banks and other financial intermediaries, on the other. They have also called for the
removal through regulation and legislation of excessive leverage.
So, for example, Islamic ethics might suggest that one support the move to regulate
financial players (such as hedge funds) more aggressively, with the aim of phasing out
or eliminating certain risk management tools, such as short selling and other
derivative contract that are characterized by major non-specificity or non-realizability.
Such derivative contracts can be replaced with synthesized derivative contracts that
are based on the coordinated sales (or leases) of real assets. Such alternative hedging
and risk management contracts have begun to be used more and more in the Islamic
finance sector recently.

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Islamic financial ethics as realized in the shari`a compliant finance sector also
suggests that all home repossessions associated with the reset of variable interest
rates, or in cases in which there is financial difficulty, such as unemployment or under
employment, be frozen immediately, by legislation or governmental authority, subject
to further review.
Furthermore Islamic ethics would suggest that all existing mortgages should be
reduced to 0% over original purchase price. Banks, or mortgage holders, that refuse or
resist these reductions should be either incentivized to comply or penalized for their
resistance. Similarly, bankruptcy judges should be allowed, and encouraged, to reduce
mortgage loans that are being services by service entities.
The basis for these suggestions is 1) the wrongfulness of imposing interest payment
stipulations on loans and 2) the scriptural encouragement that creditors reduce the
debts of their debtors who are in financial difficulty.
One of the primary concerns of economists, when it comes to suggestions that
government relief (or aid) be directed toward indebted corporate or natural persons
(although it seems to be more of an issue when dealing with later than the former!) is
the issue of moral hazard. Economist ask “Won’t people who purchased ‘too much
house’ and other bad actors be encouraged to act poorly in the future if others assume
responsibility for their recklessness.” Islamic ethicists are quite sensitive to argument.
Islamic financial professionals, accordingly, when advancing financing tend to
perform due diligence that screens out individuals who are unlikely to be able to repay

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their financing. However an Islamic ethicists would recognize interest-bearing lending
itself as a wrong, and that, therefore, the 'perverse incentive' exists on both sides of
the transaction. When we add considerations of predation and the mass applicability
of system practice, the focus of systemic remediation is likely to shift primarily to the
lender.
Professor Stiglitz in the aforementioned commentary, summarized his
recommendations in 6 points. To quote him in brief
1. correct incentives for executives…We should mitigate the
incentives for excessive risk-taking and the short-term focus that has
so long prevailed...
2. Secondly, we need to create a financial product safety
commission, to make sure that products bought and sold by banks,
pension funds, etc. are safe for "human consumption."…What we
need is more innovation addressing the needs of ordinary Americans,
so they can stay in their homes when economic conditions change.
3. We need to create a financial systems stability commission to take
an overview of the entire financial system, recognizing the
interrelations among the various parts, and to prevent the excessive
systemic leveraging that we have just experienced.
4. We need to impose other regulations to improve the safety and
soundness of our financial system, such as "speed bumps" to limit
borrowing…
5. We need better consumer protection laws, including laws that
prevent predatory lending…
6. We need better competition laws. The financial
institutions…should not be in situations where a firm is "too big to
fail." If it is that big, it should be broken up.
In consideration of time, in my comments, I have not addressed personal
financial issues, such as over-consumption of interest-bearing personal debt
(credit cards and other consumer loans) or the other ills of hyper-

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consumerism. These are issues of a psycho-spiritual nature that the Islamic
world view, with its balance between this-worldly and afterlife-related
concerns, is ideally situated to address. In should be noted that the Abrahamic
religions—and most world religions, to be frank—would also recognize the
solution to these issues. Nor have I dealt with issues of under-employment,
unemployment and the challenges of globalization. My focus has been on
structural issues in the financial systems.
To conclude, the Islamic ethicist would call for deep structural changes to the
prevailing financial system characterized by 1) the elimination of interest-based debt
financing mechanisms in favor of asset-based financing mechanisms and 2) the
elimination of risk-shifting risk management tools in favor their risk sharing, tangible
asset-based counterparts. This evolutionary path, while its may seem radical and
strange to some, is, fact, not. Rather such changes, to a large extent, consistent with
what several economists and finance academics have already been calling for and are
likely to continue to call for in the near future.
I look forward to your questions. Thank you.